There are presently a myriad of display interface standards available to integrated circuit designers who design display controllers. Display controllers are circuits that control and determine the specific information and signaling directed to a display such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or Light Emitting Diode (LED) display. Display interfaces are the circuits that actually transport the information to the display via electrical signaling. Each display interface typically has its own set of electrical signaling requirements. Part of the reason for the existence of various display interfaces is the history of display technology. Specifically, some display interfaces have evolved from television while others have evolved from computing systems.
With the convergence of computing and television, any of these standards would seem to be available for use. Therefore display controller designers are faced with the challenge of trying to integrate a multitude of different interfaces on a single semiconductor die. The incorporation of a large number of different interfaces (e.g., Display Port (DP), embedded Display Port (eDP), High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), high speed Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Display Serial Interface (DSI), low power MIPI DSI, etc.) is inefficient in terms of the silicon die real estate that is consumed incorporating a unique and custom circuit for each different interface the display controller is to support.
Moreover, even if the consumption of silicon die surface area were not a problem, the number of I/Os (e.g., solder balls) that each unique interface would introduce to the overall I/O count of the die could very well be prohibitive.